


The Latest Apprentice

by Merfilly



Category: DCU - Comicverse
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-31
Updated: 2007-12-31
Packaged: 2017-12-14 07:59:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/834540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Slade manipulates events to gain his perfect apprentice</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Latest Apprentice

He had molded Robin, made Robin into a man that was not a carbon copy of the man who began the training. But he failed to make Robin perfect. When Red Hood took Batman down at long last, it was the younger one to hold that title of Robin who exacted blood price for the crime.

When he had found another bird to work with, he came far too late. She took something of him, and gave of herself, but in the end, she chose Shiva, and proved far more adept than anyone suspected. She did not have to finish the death dance with her teacher, as Shiva demanded; instead, she had ended her own life against Shiva's true apprentice, the one that had once been Batgirl.

The offering of a new generation, though, was one he had kept a close eye on. Not from the loyalty of a bond to Dick Grayson. Or even from the perverse need to torment Roy Harper. The sheer weight of the girl belonging to his lover's family never crossed his mind.

It was the fact he saw the potential. From the first time he had seen her, as he staked out his Robin, and watched her unerringly throw a rock to hit a spider crawling too close to her toy, he had known her future would be among those who wore masks. That Dick Grayson would help train her insured this fact as much as having Black Canary for a godmother did.

He would not let her be ruined by their notions. Though a momentary doubt scattered through his mind, he had found it quite easy to set in motion the final battle between Cassandra Cain and Black Canary when Lian was eight.

When she was nine, a supposedly random car bombing took Roy Harper out of her life.

Ridding her of his Robin was the hardest. He had always sworn he would kill his flawed student face to face, but for his plans to work…it was necessary to keep the distance. And it helped that Dick was very much in the public eye as Bruce Wayne's heir.

None of the three deaths linked back to him, not even by the most devoted conspiracy theorist.

At ten years old, Lian attended the funeral of her second father. By all rights, she should have gone to live with her 'uncle' Connor or 'aunt' Mia, since Ollie had gotten himself killed in a reckless fashion the same year Dinah had died.

But he had been there, slipping into her space in a rare moment when the girl was alone. She knew who he was, knew to be wary, but the careful display of grief on his face had been enough to allay an immediate alarm. And he had spoken to her, told her how the world was growing dark, when all the heroes it had to offer kept dying, and none of the bad guys seemed to be going away.

She had managed skepticism, but was young enough to want what he offered her…a way to make right the world that had taken her papa, her daddy, all of her family from her.

She had slipped away into the world with him, letting his words win her over, to give her a shield on her heart.

Six years of training, of honing that natural eye and arm, letting her learn every ranged weapon he possessed had bonded them far tighter than even his Robin had gotten to him. He did not make the mistake of running her where heroes would see. There was none of the interference he had faced with his daughter. Just him, with the child, molding her.

The week she vanished, he told himself it was natural. Whether it was rebellion or a self-test, he accepted the note's assurance she would return. 

He knew before she did just what she had done, as the news of Cheshire and son being killed in the middle of one of their hostage scenarios reached his network.

He was not prepared for the look in her eye, or the fierceness with which she demanded he treat her as an adult in the most womanly of ways.

She had shed blood to prove her worth; he now claimed her first blood in acceptance of it, sealing the fact he truly had a worthy apprentice.


End file.
